


firefly; or, death and the hanged

by yuutsuhime



Series: Firefly [1]
Category: Persona 3
Genre: Character Study, Coming Out, F/F, Gender Confusion, Grief/Mourning, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kissing, Lowercase, Renamed Minako, Robot/Human Relationships, Suicidal Ideation, Trans Female Character, trans!Minako
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 16:09:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18472411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuutsuhime/pseuds/yuutsuhime
Summary: in the weeks after the ending of persona 3, aigis grieves for the protagonist, a trans woman named ikari hotaru.





	firefly; or, death and the hanged

**Author's Note:**

> the main character is a trans woman and is named hotaru. i also personally read/wrote aigis as a nonbinary girl because she was assigned robot at birth, but it doesn't come up because she's too sad.
> 
> i wrote this at 3am because i finished persona 3 portable a few days ago and i'm still crying endlessly. estrogen is fucking wild.

#### i.

in the evening, aigis wonders if her emotions are human enough to be called grief.

#### ii.

when aigis is alone, she closes her eyes and sees memories of hotaru – touching her, being touched by her; the delicateness they were both surprised to find in aigis' body; the winter sunlight over their sheets as they wake up together; the feeling of her hand, brimming with life, as she holds aigis and says nothing in particular. 

in this moment, now, aigis finds a memory of safety and kisses it. she wonders if this is human enough to be called dreaming.

#### iii.

aigis learns that she can substitute a recording with reality, and she watches her memories like a human child's favorite story, pretending not to know what comes next.

aigis remembers how they held hands on the rooftop after school, because they are both scared for the future.

hotaru tells aigis, _it'll be okay_ , and smiles. aigis didn't recognize this was a bashful smile, and so she'd said nothing but thanks. this was a mistake. aigis rewinds, and hotaru tells her again, _it'll be okay_.

 _how do you know_ , aigis thinks. what aigis means is that she thinks hotaru was lying.

 _it'll be okay_.

every time aigis remembers herself quietly say thanks, she wishes she could have done something more. it breaks her to know that a tender memory like this is corrupted by her hatred for everything she didn't have time to do, or didn't know how to say. it breaks her to think about all the time wasted being two girls who think things can turn out okay. she wonders how much of her truth she could have packed into words on a silent walk home together. how many times she walked home alone, and didn't have to. how everything unsaid disappeared as gently as it came. it makes aigis want to turn her violence on herself, purge her memory, and destroy everything that made someone fall in love with her, because maybe she doesn't need it anymore.

 _it'll be okay_.

aigis was built to survive a war and now she's forgotten how to survive anything, but she doesn't really care. in her memory, she and hotaru stand up and look out over the city they had to save – how they wordlessly shared the view, felt the wind on their skin; how aigis pretends to breathe because hotaru is. 

hotaru saved the world, and aigis lost hers.

#### iv.

when aigis wakes up, sometimes it's been an hour, and sometimes it's been two weeks. she learns about the funeral and sleeps through it anyway.

#### v.

in her most selfish moments, aigis wishes that she had died. maybe if their souls had been destroyed together, a fundamental part of them would have fused together, and aigis would be with her wherever they disappeared to. aigis wishes she could have held hotaru's hand in that moment, and done absolutely nothing. she wishes she could have looked at the moon and cursed the cruelty of everything and just held hotaru; died holding hotaru; died failing to protect hotaru.

instead, aigis feels alive, and it's the most cruel thing she's ever felt.

#### vi.

aigis realizes that even though she'd told hotaru _i'll always be by your side_ , she'd never told her _i love you_ , even though that's what aigis meant.

#### vii.

aigis wonders if the cat who crawled away to die really felt alone, and if that was better than dying on the old lady's lap. would the old lady have cried the way aigis tried to, when the body resting gently on her became just a body?

instead, aigis had pressed their foreheads together and let their eyes stay closed. watched all of the things she'd wanted to say fall out of her and break on the cement.

#### viii.

in a dream, aigis is sitting alone on top of the school, spreading her arms, letting the wind gust over her. the wind deposits pieces of something intangible on her body, as if parts of hotaru's dust were swept into the world she saved and could come back to aigis if aigis stayed here long enough. aigis lets the wind play with her hair, and imagines it's hotaru's hands. the breeze and warmth feel like her, and the boring repetition of finding her, everywhere, in everything, rips her apart.

all aigis did was live, and fall in love with a girl, and at her most selfish she wishes neither had happened. she wishes she could do more in the world than collect the scraps of hotaru's life. she wishes she could let herself cry. she wishes that one day, when she knocked on hotaru's door and went in, hotaru would be there studying, or laying on her bed listening to music, or doing fucking nothing; just being, and wanting to be; being monotonous. being alive. she wishes hotaru was there to be mad, or stressed out, or cry, or tell aigis about a new person she met, and just be in that room, and be together.

whenever aigis leaves hotaru's empty room, she quietly shuts the door and whispers _good night_.

#### ix.

aigis remembers how hotaru untied aigis' ribbon, and how aigis wished she had a heart so that hotaru could feel how fast it would be beating, and how hotaru showed her _this is your heart_ and burned herself into it.

aigis finds the piece of herself she gave to hotaru in hotaru's school uniform, hung over the bed. she doesn't know what hotaru is wearing right now, and she presses the cold fabric against herself and remembers hotaru's arms around her waist. the uniform hasn't been washed, and aigis wishes the scent would fill up the room and suffocate her.

 _it'll be okay_ , aigis remembers, but she doesn't know how.

 _i'll always be with you_ , aigis remembers, but aigis doesn't know where she is.

#### x.

aigis lays on the floor, holding her own machine heart, and realizes she hasn't moved for a month. how pathetic is it, fantasizing about letting the world end over a girl who touched her heart once and had to die.

aigis realizes that she still thinks _hotaru is_ , instead of _hotaru was_ ; as in, _her name means firefly_ , and not _she was my reason for being_.

#### xi.

_i've never kissed a girl before,_ aigis remembers hotaru say.

 _i am not a girl,_ aigis responds. _i am a machine, and –_

_but you dress like a girl._

_this is how i was built, but –_

_do you feel like a girl?_

_a girl is a human._ aigis says. _and i am not –_

 _it doesn't have to be that complicated,_ hotaru says. _if you want to be a girl, then you are._

 _i want to protect you,_ aigis says.

they are both quiet. aigis feels hotaru's breath on her chest.

 _i have to tell you something,_ hotaru says.

aigis waited.

_i'm also a girl – hotaru is my..._

_then i want to be a man,_ aigis blurts.

_you don't have to be._

_i don't understand._

_all that matters right is that we're here, right now. you can be you, and i can be me._

aigis thinks. _okay._

 _i think i want to kiss you,_ hotaru says.

_i'm afraid you would find that unpleasant. my body is not designed for –_

_i want this._

aigis is quiet.

_you can say no. i'm sorry if –_

aigis reaches out and holds hotaru's hand. when they kiss, everything is too angular and dry and perfect and terrifying; and when they part, they look into each others' eyes, and hotaru smiles, and aigis lets herself fall into her, so far that forever doesn't feel like enough at all.

#### xii.

aigis leaves the dorm in the evening, and walks to the shrine. it's the first time she's touched the world in a while.

a firefly lands on aigis' arm, and she focuses on it, watching its soft light pulse against her frame. she wonders if that bug knows how ugly survival is. if that bug loves someone who's both gone and everywhere at the same time.

 _i'll always be here_ , aigis remembers, and believes it.


End file.
